Life Without Her
by sweetsouthernbell
Summary: He isn't sure if he can live without her. JK.


**Title:** Life Without Her  
**Character(s):** Jack/Kate  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summery:** He isn't sure if he can live without her.  
**A/N:** I actually started to tear up writing this. I never cry. Ever. I'm a like a robot. So... kleenex warning.

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He isn't the first to the grave site, not by a long shot, but he is the last to leave. He is so caught up in the guilt eating away his insides that he doesn't even notice the others have left until it starts to thunder and his attention is diverted from the fresh mound of dirt by the incoming sound. The island has one hell of a sense of timing as it is demonstrating for all to see now. They are mourning and so is it.

They'd been lucky—too lucky. Since Eko, there'd been no more deaths. No one else was taken. No one saw anything unusual. It was the closest they'd ever come to living a normal life on this godforsaken spit of land in the South Pacific. It was like the Elizabethan Age of the island. Things were going well, everything was fine and good and _normal_.

But all things must come to an end and all queens must die.

He should've been able to stop it. He was right there _with her_ the entire time. He should've been able to stop it, to help her, to fix her and make her better because he needed her, they all needed her _so_ badly. She brought smiles when no one else had one and helping hand when no one had one to spare.

He couldn't stop it and because of his failure, she's gone. It's all his fault. No one can argue otherwise.

The rain comes seconds after the thunder and still he doesn't move. It isn't the first rainstorm he's been caught in and it certainly won't be the last. He is condemned to a lifetime of them on this fucking island.

"Jack, you have to stop this."

He bites his lip and shakes his head sharply, refusing to look up at her. No, no he doesn't. He doesn't have to stop anything because he isn't doing anything to begin with.

"Jack," she persists.

"Leave me alone." It's a whisper on the wind, lost to everyone's ears but hers. He knows she heard him. She always does.

She sighs. "Jack."

"You're not here."

"Do you really believe that?" she asks, smiling softly at him.

No. He doesn't. He can't. He has to. "Yes."

"Then let go."

"Stop it."

"You have to let go," she whispers.

He shakes his head again. No, no he doesn't. He doesn't have to let go if he doesn't want to and no one can make him. He wants to hold onto her forever and ever and never let her go.

"No I don't."

"You do," she says and he can feel her sadness leaking into his bones. She's in as much pain as he is. The only difference is that she's willing to let it go, let _them_ go. If she wants to move on, she has to. "You have to let me go."

"Stop it."

"Jack."

"I won't," he says fiercely. He's going to fight her with every inch of stubborn he has in him on this. "I won't do it."

"Please."

"Don't…" he doesn't want to cry again but that's directly where he's headed. Tears have been his best fucking friend since she died. It's been three days since then. He isn't sure if he's ever going to stop. He isn't sure if he wants to.

She says nothing. She just looks at him with those sad hazel eyes and waits for him to speak. She's the one who's got forever. He doesn't. He'll cave first.

"Don't make me."

"I'm not," she says.

"Yes, you are," he whispers fiercely. The wind's starting to pick up and the rain's falling harder. It's the coldest he's ever been on the island. He isn't sure if he should blame that on the storm or on her. He's going to be cold for a long time without her now. "You're making me."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Stop it."

"Jack."

"I won't do it."

"You have to." The rain whips his face, the manifestation of her anger with him. It's his stubbornness that's holding her there and she doesn't want to leave him but she has to. She isn't going to be like the others, she refuses to be like them.

He turns his head away from her. "I can't."

In response, the wind dies suddenly and it's raining like normal again. His admission is too heartbreaking for even her anger to withstand. "Please," she whispers. "Please let me go."

He looks up for the first time since the rain started. He doesn't know what he had expected to see but it wasn't to see her. She looks like she did when he last saw her, breathtakingly beautiful despite the blood staining her pale skin and clothes. She shouldn't be there at all. His mind's playing tricks on him again.

"_I can't_," he repeats.

She looks at him sadly. "She needs you more then I do."

He closes his eyes against the tears. She never minded to see him cry but he minds letting her see tears now. "I can't do it alone."

"You have to."

"Don't make me do it alone," he's practically pleading with her now.

"I have to go, Jack."

"Don't go."

Somehow she manages to give him a soft smile while staying immeasurably sad. "I don't belong here anymore."

"Of course you do," he insists. Denial fits him like a glove, it really does. "You belong here, with us."

"I did. I don't anymore."

Despite his best efforts, tears start to trail down the sides of his face, making rivers in the rain water.

"Let me go."

He doesn't say anything. It's all too much. He can't handle this. He can't let her go. He can't do this on his own. She knows that and she's making him anyway. "I love you," he says so softly that even he can barely hear the words.

She's heard them and she smiles at him again, still sad, she's always sad now. "Forever and ever."

He doesn't know when the rain stopped exactly. It was sometime after he looked away from her in favor of the freshly dug earth at his feet. Whenever it stopped, however, she disappeared with it. She's gone. She isn't ever coming back. She can't, no matter how much he wants her to. She has another purpose and life now. He has to accept that, move on somehow, pick up the pieces of his shattered life and put them back together as best he can.

She doesn't need him anymore but someone else does and he has to try to be okay again, if only for his daughter's sake.

He turns from the grave, his first small step of many on the path towards life without her.

_Kate Austen  
Friend. Wife. Mother._

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_Comments are love._


End file.
